Burmese actress goes into hiding as celebrities opposing Myanmar coup added to arrest list

CNN
Sandi Sidhu and Helen Regan,
February 18, 2021

(CNN)Since "day one" of the military coup, Burmese actress Paing Phyo Thu -- one of the country's highest-paid stars -- says she has been on the streets opposing the ruling junta.

One of Myamar's highest-paid actresses, she has been offering financial help to striking staff who have given up their jobs to take part in the growing civil disobedience movement, known as CDM. 

AP Interview: Myanmar troops said to be moving to cities

StarTribune

EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press
February 18, 2021

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. independent investigator on Myanmar said Wednesday that "hardened" troops are being deployed from a number of border areas in northern Rakhine state to some cities, raising the possibility of bloodshed and "a tragic loss of life."

Special rapporteur Tom Andrews said in an interview with The Associated Press that the initial restraint of police dealing with "robust citizen opposition to the coup" has moved on in some instances to use of rubber bullets, real ammunition being fired and use of water cannons.

He said he can now confirm "from a few sources" that some troops are moving to some populated cities from Rakhine, where the government is still fighting a Rohingya insurgency after a 2017 military crackdown that led 700,000 members of the Muslim minority to flee to Bangladesh.

"The people of Myanmar understand what the military and these generals are capable of, and so the presence of military and of troops, the escalation of a military presence, and where these troops are coming from makes me very, very nervous," Andrews said.

Is the Myanmar coup a turning point for the Rohingya?

Aljazeera

Inside Story
17 Feb 2021

Many people say they are only now realising the extent of the army’s crackdown on ethnic minorities including Rohingya.

IOM Bangladesh Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis Response - External Situation Report (December 2020 - January 2021)

Situation Report
Source: IOM
17 Feb 2021

Link : Here

Where Do the Rohingya Go After the Coup in Myanmar?

The New York Times

Opinion
Mayyu Ali
Feb. 18, 2021

 In the countrywide protests against the coup, nobody is talking about the future of the persecuted Rohingya minority.

Mr. Ali is a Rohingya poet who had to flee his home in Myanmar after the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya by the military.

Credit...Daniel Zender


COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — I have been living in a refugee camp here since 2017, after the campaign of murder, rape and arson by the military in Myanmar forced more than 750,000 people from the Rohingya community to flee our homes in Rakhine State. Since the military coup in Myanmar on Feb. 1, our camp has been abuzz with conversation and even more uncertainty about the future. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who ordered the genocidal violence against us, has taken charge of the country.

Trial for Aung San Suu Kyi Begins in Secret

The New York Times

Hannah Beech
Feb. 16, 2021

Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader appeared in court via video conference without her lawyer’s
knowledge. She faces an additional charge that had not been previously made public.

Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, on Tuesday called for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the ousted civilian leader. In Naypidaw, the capital, her trial began in secret.Credit...The New York Times

The closed-door trial began in secret, with the two defendants appearing by video. The defense attorney wasn’t even aware what was happening. By the time he rushed to the court on Tuesday afternoon, it was all over, in less than an hour.

The trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader who was ousted in a military coup two weeks ago, and U Win Myint, the deposed president, began on Tuesday. They face obscure charges that could land them in prison for six years and three years respectively.

Myanmar is Experiencing a Digital-Age Coup – Tech Companies Must Push Back

JUST SECURITY
Allie Funk
February 16, 2021 

Service providers and other tech companies have a duty to resist the Myanmar military’s desperate attempt to monopolize control over information.

On Feb. 1, Myanmar’s military seized control of the government, detained political leaders, issued a one-year state of emergency, and announced that its commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing, would lead the country. What followed was a page pulled directly from the censorship playbook. Citing all-too-familiar concerns over national security, unrest, and rumors, the military has now ordered several temporary internet shutdowns and has blocked news websites and major social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.

Malaysia to Deport 1,200 Myanmar Migrants Despite Post-Coup Turmoil

Bloomberg
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
16 February 2021,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (AP) -- Malaysia's government will repatriate 1,200 Myanmar migrants next week despite a military coup in their home country, but has assured that they will not include minority Muslim Rohingya refugees or those registered with the U.N. refugee agency.

But the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees voiced concern Tuesday that there may be vulnerable women and children among the group. Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was detained as the military seized power on Feb. 1, sparking protests in the country.

How will democracy be defined after Myanmar’s military coup?

New Statesment
FRANCIS WADE

16 FEBRUARY 2021

The democratic inclusivity of the country’s anti-coup protests mark a departure from its recent past.

Protests in Myanmar are now entering their third week AUNG KYAW HTET/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES,

Myanmar’s anti-coup protests, now in their third week, have gone country-wide. Triggered by the military’s putsch of the civilian government on 1 February, the demonstrations have spread from central cities to remote towns. Despite threats of police violence, crowds have continued to grow, drawing in myriad ethnic and religious communities and divergent political groupings. In a nation riven by deep social divides, where only three years ago many were championing the military’s cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, the coup has produced something wholly unexpected: a show of democratic inclusivity by a populace that, over the past decade, has shown a pointed hostility towards that principle.

Demining starts along Ann-Sittwe road and at Rathedaung Twsp villages

DMG

Development Media Group

Wednesday, February 17, 2021 

The Tatmadaw began landmin

e clearance operations on February 15 along the Ann-Sittwe road and around Angumaw and Khamaung Seik villages in Rathedaung Township, Arakan State, according to the Arakan State Administration Council.

“We mainly do demining along the Pyidaungsu [Union] road. We will come and clear landmines in Sittwe and Ann townships. We will do it from morning to evening. If villages ask for help, we will come and do demining,” said Colonel Min Than, a member of the Arakan State Administration Council, the local governing body established by Myanmar’s military regime.

Blinken, Indonesian Foreign Minister Share 'Deep Concern' On Myanmar - US State Dept.

UrduPoint
Muhammad Irfan
Tue 16th February 2021 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi shared a "deep concern" over the military coup in Myanmar and discussed Jakarta's efforts to bring peace in Afghanistan, Department of State spokesperson Ned Price said in a readout of the conversation on Tuesday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th February, 2021) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi shared a "deep concern" over the military coup in Myanmar and discussed Jakarta's efforts to bring peace in Afghanistan, Department of State spokesperson Ned price said in a readout of the conversation on Tuesday.

Arakan’s ANP facing pressure over cooperation with military’s State Administration Council

ထြန္းခိုင္ (နိရဥၥရာ)
Wednesday, February 17, 2021

The Arakan National Party (ANP) will monitor the inclusion of Daw Aye Nu Sein, a top leader of the ANP as a member of the State Administration Council, for a certain period of time, said U Tha Tun Hla, Chair of the ANP.

The decision was arrived at the CEC meeting of the ANP held in MraukU Township of Arakan State from February 12 to 14.

The party had a thorough discussion on her inclusion in the State Administration Council.The party faces criticism due to the inclusion in the State Administration Council.The CEC meeting was attended by more than 80 party members. The party laid down three-point decision.

“Three-point decision arrived at the meeting are:

ALP opposes military dictatorship and commits to building up the federal union

DGM

မင္းထြန္း 
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 

The Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) issued a statement on February 14th, opposing military dictatorship and pledging the continued efforts for building up the federal union.

Saw Mya Yazar Lin, Spokesperson of the ALP declared “No one will view the military coup as a good thing. We don’t want the situation of a coup. Now the unrest has erupted nationwide. It may hamper the country’s development, resulting in great losses to the citizens.”

She added “The ALP has been constantly working for the emergence of a genuine democratic federal union, national equality and autonomy, for more than three decades.”

1,000 more Rohingyas relocated to Bhashan Char

Dhaka Tribune

Anwar Hussain, Chittagong
February 16th, 2021

File photo of Rohingyas board one of the ships at Chittagong Boat Club to travel to Bhashan Char on Friday, December 4, 2020 Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan/Dhaka Tribune

On Monday, some 2,010 Rohingyas reached the island in the fourth phase of relocation process 

Some 1,009 more Rohingyas have arrived at Bhashan Char in Noakhali from the camps in Cox's Bazar on the second day in the fourth phase of the relocation process.

The persecuted Myanmar citizens reached the island in the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday afternoon, after travelling from Chittagong.

Earlier, three ships of the Bangladesh Navy carrying the Rohingyas left the Chittagong Boat Club jetty in the port city's Patenga area around 11:15am, Additional Commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC) Mohammad Shamsud Douza told the Dhaka Tribune.

မွတ်ဆလင်ဒုက္ခသည်ဝှက်ဖဲကို ထုတ်သုံးလာသည့် မြန်မာ စစ်တပ်၏ ကစားပွဲ

DMG
February 17,2021

 စောသန္တာအေး မြန်မာပြန်ဆိုသည်။

 ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် အာဏာရယူလိုက်ပြီးနောက် လူထု၏ ကန့်ကွက်ဆန္ဒထုတ်ဖော်မှုများ နှင့်အတူ အမေရိကန်၊ အီးယူနှင့် ကုလသမဂ္ဂတို့၏ ပြစ်တင်ရှုတ်ချမှုများ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည့် မြန်မာစစ်တပ်အတွက် အနိုင် ရရန် ထုတ်သုံးနိုင်သည့် ဝှက်ဖဲမှာ မရှိသလောက်နည်းပုံ ပေါ်သည်။

Myanmar dispatches: updates and analysis from our law student correspondents in Myanmar

JURIST

JURIST Staff

February 15, 2021

JURIST EXCLUSIVE – Our law student correspondents in Myanmar continue to send reports of the latest developments on the ground, along with their perspectives and analysis of the legal issues presented by the February 1 military coup. These are excerpts from the first extensive report to JURIST received late last night after the Myanmar military’s internet blackout was lifted Monday morning Myanmar time:


Internet is back at 9 am.

Last night, one person died in Myit Kyi Narr, Kachin State. 5 reporters were arrested there last night but they’re released this morning, just now.

ASSK [Aung San Suu Kyi] and the president will be brought to the court on 17 Feb to decide whether this case should be brought to the Court (Although they detained them on 1 Feb, they issued the allegations on 2 Feb. 15 days of detention will be completed on 17 Feb). Will they release them now?? Or will they make another accusations to keep them in jail like before?

‘We Can Bring Down the Regime’: Myanmar’s Protesting Workers Are Unbowed

The New York Times

Richard C. Paddock
Feb. 16, 2021

Two weeks after the military took power in a coup, growing work stoppages are undermining the ruling generals’ attempt to assert authority over an angry population.


Thousands of protesters gathered in Yangon, Myanmar, on Monday.Credit...The New York Times

Myanmar’s coup leaders have called on hundreds of thousands of government employees — doctors, garbage collectors, electricity workers — to set their “emotion” aside, abandon their protests against the military and return to work.

But on Monday, even after the army had put armored vehicles in the street in a nighttime show of power, the workers displayed little interest in returning to their jobs.

The work stoppages, which appear to be growing, are undermining the ruling generals as they try to assert their authority over the population after seizing power two weeks ago.

Why did the Myanmar military overthrow the NLD government?

The Daily Star

Mohammad Abdur Razzak
February 16, 2021

File photo of Min Aung Hlaing with Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo: AP

Myanmar started its democratic journey in 2011 with a quasi-civilian government headed by the retired General U Thein Sein. Before becoming President, he worked as a member in the military junta's State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in 1997. Later, he was made the Prime Minister in General Than Shwe's cabinet (2007 to 2011). Ahead of the general elections in 2010, General U Thein Sein, along with 22 other military officials, were sent on retirement from the Army to form and lead the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). USDP won the majority in a controversially contested election in 2010. General U Thein Sein was sworn in as the 8th President of Myanmar on March 30, 2011.

Word-of-mouth recommendation drawing them: 2,010 Rohingyas reach Bhasan Char

The Daily Star 

Star Digital Report
February 15, 2021

Photo: Rajib Raihan 

 

Mohammed Hossen (60), a Rohingya man from Cox's Bazar's Kutupalong camp, never thought that he would shift to Bhasan Char. However, well-made accommodation and better facilities than Ukhia Rohingya camp changed his mind.

"I never thought I would go to Bhasan Char. But I changed my mind when I came to know about good accommodation, more facilities there from one of my younger brothers who shifted in first batch," Hossen told The Daily Star at Patenga Boat Club in Chattogram, before they set out for Bhasan Char. 

Huge rallies in Myanmar for ninth day as army steps up arrests

Aljazeera
14 Feb 2021

Tens of thousands take to streets as the military hunts protest backers and steps up arrests.

Protesters hold up signs supporting the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) at a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on February 14, 2021 [Ye Aung Thu/ AFP]

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Myanmar’s big cities for a ninth day of anti-coup demonstrations, as the country’s new military rulers rolled back laws protecting freedom and stepped up the arrests of politicians and activists.